This land is my land.

28 03 2011

Now that I have been in the United States for A WHOLE MONTH already, I have come to realize that there is a lot about the culture here that I can still totally identify with, even after spending the past almost 20 years overseas. I feel like I would feel completely comfortable easing back into society here, and pretending I had never left.

For example, take… people. I understand their language, their jokes, their mentality and their concerns. I can talk shop on baseball, hurricanes and inflation in the cost of an ice cream cone. And everyone is just so nice to each other. That’s what I really like about Americans.

In the past couple of weeks, I have also been noticing stuff that is maybe a little under the surface… things you take note of only when you are here a longer time, that are so very different from my life in Europe. A couple of days ago, I started writing down a few of these, and thought I’d share them.

Here an incomplete list of fascinating stuff I have (re-)learned about the USA:

– Freight trains, though not as plentiful as in Europe, are exponentially longer than in Europe. The other day I was stuck at a railroad crossing in downtown Hollywood, FL as a cargo train passed. I counted 150 wagons, not including the two locomotives that were pulling it.

– There is a good reason it’s called commercial radio. When there is a commercial on the station you happen to be listening to, there will be commercials on all the other radio stations, at the same time. It’s like all radio stations have together conspired to simultaneously flood their listenership with paid advertising. The exception to the rule is, of course, (commercial-free) National Public Radio… that is in the middle of its Spring fund drive.

Radio Gaga.

– And by day four of the above-mentioned NPR beg-fest, any intelligent and loyal NPR listener is ready to pick up the phone, not to pledge but to tell them to please, please STOP! There is only so much penetrating, public on-air groveling I can tolerate before it seriously grates on my nerves. And you’ll notice that the voices get more desperate the closer the deadline creeps. (“Please, pledge NOW! We need your money!”)

– One more thing about advertising. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry is currently paying millions to bombard television viewers with the message that “the deeper you go the more good you learn about oil and natural gas.” Really?  Deepwater Horizon, anyone?

– March Madness is not some kind of psychotic illness that runs rampant in the Springtime, but a basketball tournament that everyone seems to get real excited about. (OK, maybe it is an illness…)

–  To end on a positive note: Americans volunteer more than any other population I know. There are opportunities to do unpaid social work everywhere – coach a team, chaperone kids or help old people. If only there were as many paid jobs as there are volunteer opportunities, this country would be in fantastic shape.


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Categories : Americana, This & that in the real world

Just another Saturday night

23 03 2011

A cacophony of voices, a throng of people of all ages, all shapes and sizes, black, white and brown, mingle on the beach promenade. The stroll, skate, sit, eat, talk, run and bike away the lazy day.

I spread my towel on the beach facing the water, take off my sandals and let the clean beige sand slip through my toes. The wind comes out of the Northeast, and the late afternoon sun warms my back. My shadow gets longer and longer as the sun sinks westward, behind the beachfront restaurants, the intracoastal waterway, the Everglades, and the earth beyond. I take out my journal, and write down what I see around me.

Watching my shadow.

To my left, four generations of an extended family chatter away in Spanish. All at once and without punctuation or paragraphs. Some of them sit on blankets in the sand, others on coolers, a colorful umbrella angled away from me is their shelter. Turning right, I see some teenagers play 3-a-side soccer in the sand while, other, smaller kids watch as ice cream from their too-large cones drips off their faces, and between their fingers.

A disembodied orange flag in the ocean mysteriously creeps closer to shore, snaking around to the right. Only as the flag, floating on a buoy, approaches the shallow water do I notice the scuba diver, dressed in black neoprene, attached to it by a cord. He emerges from the waves, takes off his over-long flippers, gathers up his flag-buoy and walks out of the ocean. He looks around at his surroundings as if he was a Martian, just landed on earth.

In my line of vision to the open sea, a small girl sits in a hole in the sand that it probably took her all day to dig with her tiny white plastic shovel. Her head is the only part of her body still sticking out above ground. The incoming tide inches ever closer to her construction site. And just a few minutes after her mother calls to tell her it’s time to go home, her hole is inundated with water, the waves rolling in like last week’s Japanese tsunami.

Beyond the beach, a triathlete swims parallel to the shoreline, his labored strokes witness to the fact that he’s probably got a few miles in those arms already today. But he soliders on, bobbing up and down with the surf, moving slowly and steadily from right to left. After a few minutes he disappears to the north, continuing on his way.

Miles off shore, huge cruise ships – cities on the water – march steadily out of Port Everglades in the opposite direction, one after the other, heading towards Caribbean points south, unknown.

On the beach promenade behind me, Tony the Pizza Chef serves up his pies the size of hors d’oevres platters to a hungry clientele. Still, eyes grow wider yet when they see dinner arrive at their tables.

As dusk falls, the blood-red, radiant supermoon surfaces in the distance. Cheers go up, cell phone cameras are aimed and thousands of underexposed, shaky photos are shot, filed, emailed, messaged, uploaded.

An honest attempt with a compact camera.

A rock band strikes up the first chords of its evening set in the bandshell. People dance, tap their feet, embrace life.

On just another Saturday night at the beach.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin'

Daily devotions on eight wheels

14 03 2011

One of my goals on this three month vacation unpaid personal leave of absence is to get a head start on inline skate training for the 2011 race season ahead of my European friends. While they are still shoveling snow and enduring blasts of arctic weather, I get to bask in Florida’s springtime. It’s dry and warm almost every morning when I head to the coast at 6:30 a.m. for my sunrise skate. It’s my personal devotion to the dawn of a new day.

Meantime, my skates are wondering what the hell is going on. In the first two weeks of my stay here I have put in about 100 miles (160 km) or so, probably more than I would do in any given summer month in Switzerland.

Giving the skates a rest at the beach.

But I’ve found out that skating on the beach or along the intracoastal waterway here in South Florida can also be mighty tricky, with many unfamiliar obstacles and sights to see.

First of all, there is the wind. The coastline skate path is, pretty much, due north to south. So when the wind comes from the north or the south, it’s logical that when you skate the one way (into the wind) you are basically standing still. Every yard (meter) forward is unbelievably hard work. And then when you turn around to go back the other way (away from the wind) you are doing nothing less than flying. OUT OF THE WAY, EVERYONE!!

It’s when the wind comes right off the ocean, from the east, that it socks you in the head BOTH ways. Florida has these winds coming off the water probably, oh, I will say, 90 percent of the time.

Second, the sand. It’s everywhere. I don’t even want to venture a look into my ball bearings after these first two weeks. Before I leave here in June, I will owe those babies a serious professional cleaning job. Hopefully they will bear with me that long.

And third, the flora and fauna one encounters in the tropics as opposed to in the old world is so… interesting. In Switzerland, I skate past farms and quaint villages with half-timbered houses that are probably 700 years old. The cattle and horses in the meadows, happily and lazily munching on luscious green, protein-rich grass, lift their heads as I pass. Last Spring on one of my favorite routes near Zurich, I skated by one cow in the process of giving birth to a calf.

Here, I skate past all sorts of crazy-looking palm trees, nouveau-riche waterside villas barely as old as I am and… manatees.

Sea-cows are watching.

Given the choice, though, considering the time of year, I will gladly take the wind, sand and manatees. When hurricane season starts, I will reassess.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Skater Girl, Sports that can kill

Yoga for beginners

6 03 2011

The primordial “OOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM” echoes through a darkened room. Nine men and women ranging in age from 25 to about 65 sit on their mats laid out on the bamboo parquet floor and call on the forces of the universe to strengthen them. A ceiling fan above whirrs quietly.

OM. The most important mantra of yoga.

Yes, I am trying out yoga for the first time. No, I have not yet joined the ranks of the truly esoteric. Though the smell of the aromatherapy essential oil in the room is slowly going to my head.

In the past couple of months, many of my friends have told me yoga would be good for me. Not only as a sharp contrast to all the exercise and physical activity I do, but also to help me calm down and relearn healthy sleep. So, I thought, if it works for everyone else, I’d like to see if it would really work for me.

From afar, and as a hopelessly practical, realistic and grounded member of the human race, I always thought yoga was something for spaced-out 60’s flower-power wannabes who either mourned the passing of time or were born a generation too late. Or for those who recently read “Eat Pray Love”.

The first class I attend, on a bright and fresh Wednesday morning, is taught by Gina, a very nice, petite yet strong-looking woman in her thirties. She welcomes me, the newbie, and makes me feel comfortable in a room full of folks who know each other and seem to have been doing this for a while already. The course is listed as “Basic – Level 1” but for the next 90 minutes, I have serious trouble keeping up and keeping my balance. I periodically peek through supposedly closed eyes at everyone else to make sure I’m doing this right. Every so often, petite, strong Gina comes by to introduce me to muscles I never knew I had.

Some of the positions I learn in my first 90-minute yoga torture session include: cat cow, downward dog (an alledgedly “relaxing” pose), child’s pose (oh, feel that pain!), warriors I, II and III, triangle pose, and the classic: tree pose. Deep breathing exercises are the core of yoga, and I now better understand how that can aid in bringing stability and centered-ness into one’s being. Or at least how you get a really good temporary oxygen high.

And if nothing else, my first yoga class instills in me a new respect for the practice. For the first time ever, I realize how truly physically challenging this is. It’s really hard! Makes me break out in a sweat even though it doesn’t really look like I’m doing anything all too strenuous.

But the whole time I still don’t think I’m doing this right. Maybe I didn’t call on the forces of the universe with sufficient conviction. Maybe I need to practice my “OM” some more.

I wonder if Gina will let me back in next week.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Sports that can kill

Snow Bunnies take St. Moritz

1 02 2011

Last weekend I finally got my butt off the sofa and went skiing. It was my first venture into the Alps this season, and I guess I didn’t remember how cold it is out there. And how heavy all that damn equipment is.

WANTED: A competent skier.

But first things first. The story begins like this. About three years ago I found out that my friend Pascale’s family owns a mountain home near St. Moritz.

For those unfamiliar with St. Moritz, allow me to introduce the place. It is probably the most exclusive (expensive) ski area in the Swiss Alps, on par with, say, Vail, Colorado in the Rockies. It is a place where the rich and famous (and the not-so-famous – just rich) gather to party, ski, see and be seen. Regular guests include, for example: botoxed, bejeweled Russian madams and mistresses, just-divorced German corporate captains on the rebound, and morally corrupt Italian Prime Ministers. “Fur” is not a bad word here, especially when daytime temperatures hang around a nippy -25 degrees Centigrade (-13 degrees Farenheit).

It is a place where 100 ml (3.4 oz) of fresh-squeezed strawberry juice will run you about 65 U.S. dollars.

So imagine my delight when Pascale invited me to stay at her house, eat her food and drink her fresh strawberry juice – for free.

Pascale spends most of her weekends in this picturesque valley in southeastern Switzerland. On Saturday morning she took me to her winter playground, the Corviglia ski area. I spent the first 15 minutes getting reacquainted with my ski-boots. (Ummm… how do we do this again?) Then we each dragged 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of dead weight ski equipment up a steep hill to the lift. Only here in Switzerland do they test your fitness before you even get into the gondola that will take you to the top of the mountain. If you didn’t have a heart attack, you’re good to go.

Backcountry skiers – the purists who spend six hours walking up the mountain in order to then spend 20 minutes skiing back down – frown on gondolas, of course.

Once at the top, all arrows pointed into the valley, though stubborn morning clouds initially drained the pistes of any contrast whatsoever. White on white is always tough to navigate, no matter how wide you open your eyes.

My dear friend Pascale, who has been skiing roughly 20 years longer than I have, elegantly and gracefully zipped across the labyrinth of pistes like a real snow bunny, putting my inferior (yet gutsy!) ski talent to shame. But she was kind enough to stop and wait for me every few hundred meters. And if she hadn’t been around I would still be standing at the top of Piz Nair today, wondering which run would get me back to the car.

On top of the world last Saturday afternoon.

Joy of joys, I had a good day. A really good day. Seven hours standing in my ski boots and leaving other athletes in my dust, without eating any snow myself, or otherwise wiping out in spectacular fashion – not once! Just call me Lindsey Vonn from now on.

So maybe I really did learn something by watching World Cup skiing on TV the last few weekends, and not even at the expense of my anterior cruciate ligaments or any other key body part(s). As I returned to the lowlands happy and satisfied on Sunday afternoon, my red blood cells were still jumping for joy.

And they deserve more of the same… so I’ll be back in the mountains next weekend, guaranteed.


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Categories : Cruisin', EuroTrash, Sports that can kill

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